


other maps will tell you

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Movie(s), Slow Build, Spoilers, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Working My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce keeps moving from place to place. Natasha is assigned to keep an eye on him. They start meeting halfway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	other maps will tell you

 

 

 

His actions are so predictable it makes Natasha's assignment really easy; disease, poverty, natural disasters. There he goes. She doesn't care for Banner's martyr complex and if he is so keen on _helping_ there are so many other, more structured, ways to do it. But at least this simplifies things.

She finds him in Guatemala first.

He thinks he blends so well. He does not blend at all. She wants to tell him how much his stupid straw hat makes him stand out, but she guesses he'll be easier to locate if he doesn't know this.

`Don't tell me there's a global emergency so soon?´ he asks. His tone is so dry Natasha feels the urge to swallow just from listening.

She looks around, studying his current home: in the mountains, it looks exactly the same as all the other places he's ever lived since he went into hiding. It doesn't matter the continent. Even the little things: the position of the bed facing the window, the house void of anything useless, devoid of anything meaningful, anything that couldn't be abandoned in five minutes. Natasha wonders if that gives him comfort, the illusion of retaining control.

`No,´ she says. `Just checking up on you.´

Fury didn't say direct contact with the subject was necessary but the voice in which he said it told Natasha he recommended it. To keep a distance between the organization and Banner would imply they still see him, mainly, as a threat. And though they will always see him as a threat Natasha believes she is here to prove that it's not all he is to them.

Bruce walks in circles around her, close to the walls.

`Why now?´

`Why not? What are you doing here, doctor?´

`Here is the same as anywhere else. Isn't it?´

Natasha shakes her head.

`You can't pick a destination at random. Not every place in the world is the same. You were in Cuba for a while. Our government is not going to like that. You must have realized that, right?´

`Excuse me, Agent Romanoff, if I don't consider _our_ government really _mine_ right at this moment. Not as much as to be worrying what they might or might not think of how I choose to live my life.´

Natasha cocks her head to one side; she can tell he knows that gesture by now, it would be a bad tell if it weren't for the fact Natasha does it on purpose when she is not convinced about something.

`And are you sure this _our_ government is really your government?´ he asks.

Natasha snorts: `Seriously, you spend a couple of decades being Russian and people suspect your loyalties for life.´

That actually makes Bruce chuckle. It's a strange sight.

Natasha tells him about how she got rid of her accent, how she trained herself to do it, and how it helps to learn other languages when you are trying to erase your mothertongue. She tells him it helps to look closely at other people when they talk, their mouths, and then stand in front of a mirrors for hours, until the slight indentures of the accent are smoothed over. Bruce knows bits and scraps of many languages but his accent is always atrocious. She is taking up Mandarin these days – she is pretty fluent but reading and writing it still gives her some trouble.

`Perhaps I should go to China next,´ he says. `That way if you have to come check up on me again at least you could practice.´

Direct contact with the subject under observation is not required in this case, but there's this other rule she knows about: direct contact will always affect the outcome of the observation.

 

 

 

 

 

`You know? Tony actually warned me against letting you get too close. And I'm not sure if he was joking or not.´

`Stark is not my biggest fan.´

`What did you do to him?´

`I lied to him. I pretended to be someone I was not.´

`I thought that was your whole raison d'etre.´

She can tell she doesn't put on a good poker face at that. And that should bother her. But she doesn't care if he knows she's hurt. It's the kind of information Natasha would be careful not to let slip – she's constructed her life around it. Somehow it's all right with Bruce. She is asking for his trust, ultimately, but she shouldn't be asking him for blind faith. She has to put something on the line as well.

He takes a couple of steps towards her. He never disturbs her personal space so Natasha doesn't really react at first.

`Sorry,´ he says. `That was rude of me. You didn't deserve that.´

He touches her elbow. Bruce never ever touches people so she knows it must mean something. Even he looks surprised by the gesture.

`Don't worry about it,´ she tells him. `I don't.´

 

 

 

 

 

He changes continents.

Locations all over Asia light up on S.H.I.E.L.D's screens like a Christmas tree.

All this globetrotting and Natasha wonders why he never goes to Russia.

(she could recommend it, parts of it, _all that space_ )

 

 

 

 

 

`What would you do if you have to face the other guy again?´

`At least this time I'll know what to expect.´

`It seems odd that they sent you on this mission, is all.´

`Maybe I volunteered.´

`Did you?´

`No.´

He grins, and it makes him look younger.

 

 

 

 

 

He disappears.

Fury is worried – in that frantic, pissed-off way of being worried he has. He also makes not so subtle hints at how this is Natasha's fault. She starts packing again, without an official destination: _an agent is better than a satellite_ she tells Fury.

 

 

 

 

 

`It's been really difficult tracking you here, doctor.´ It's not a compliment, something is not right. `Why is that?´

In Taipei she finally catches up with him.

It's so hot outside she is quietly thankful for the old-fashioned fan he has in his room, because Bruce never does worldly comforts. It's hot and warm and and it's raining and water filters through the walls of his flat.

Bruce takes his hands out of his pockets and shows her a small device, like a wristwatch but wider and heavier. He puts it on the table so that Natasha can examine it.

`I see. What does it do?´

`It scrambles radio, CCTV and satellite signals. As long as I'm wearing it no surveillance camera on earth can take my picture. That's the idea, anyway. I've been told it's just a prototype.´

`This is a very dangerous piece of technology.´

He shrugs.

`I guess.´

Natasha turns it around. There it is, shamelessly engraved, the Stark Industries logo.

`When did you make contact with Stark?´

`Why, so you can slap his wrist? I haven't made contact. He mailed this to me.´

` _Mailed_?´ like she doesn't understand the word.

`Did you know he has his own international shipping company?´

The first thing she is going to do after returning to the base is kill Tony Stark. She knows at least twenty ways to do this. At the same time Natasha feels oddly, illogically relieved there's someone out there looking out for Bruce.

 

 

 

 

 

`No more glitches,´ is Fury's idea of a _welcome back_.

She takes a couple of personal days and drives to California. Where the idea of welcome back is not much warmer.

`I knew there was going to be some kind of horrible retribution,´ Stark says, gasping when she finds her in his living room. `But sending you? That's just too mean, even for Fury. How did you get past Jarvis anyway?´

`You updated all the security last week. _You_ sent _me_ the new passwords.´

`That was you?´

Natasha sighs, sitting down on the big couch in the middle of the room. She hasn't seen most of the furniture here, but at the speed with which Tony gets his own house destroyed it's no wonder. The man is definitively not adverse to change.

`Where's Pepper?´ she asks.

`San Francisco.´

`Oh, yeah, the bill, I forgot.´

`I'd appreciate if you stopped spying on my life as a whole, it would be of great help.´

`Then stop putting it on Twitter.´

`Do you want a drink? I'm sure I could get you a glass of sulfur.´

She gives him a fond look. It's almost too easy to forget why she likes Stark, then it comes back to her, warm and sudden like sunshine.

`Tony...´

`I thought I'd revoked all first-name privileges for you like two years ago?´

` _Tony_.´

`Okay, what?´

`Let me handle Bruce.´

`Yes, that's a good plan, that sounds like it's going to work out for all of us, specially Bruce.´

`Believe me, you interfering is not going to make things easier for him.´

`At least it will make things harder for Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.´

`Don't be a child. It will make things harder _for me_. This one time, you have to trust me, Tony,´ and his eyes darken at the word _trust_. `I'm on the good side.´

`The good side? Which side is that? Fury's or mine?´

`Bruce's.´

 

 

 

 

 

Either she is getting sloppier or Bruce is getting really good at noticing when she shows up.

`If you are going to be following me, you could as well help,´ he says to the seemingly uninhabited shadows of an small abandoned hospital outside Colombo.

`What do you need?´ the shadows reply.

`Do you have some change? Assuming you speak Tamil, and I'm going to assume you do, there's a man in Moratuwa who sells really cheap antibiotics. Do you think S.H.I.E.L.D. can spare fifty bucks?´

Natasha comes into the amber light of the oil lamp.

`I'm sure we can open a tab for you, doctor.´

When she comes back –with more than fifty dollars worth of black market medicine– he speaks to her about the history of this building; it was requisitioned by the rebels in the civil war, at the end of the 80s, to attend to their wounded soldiers, some kind of underground hospital. The war has ended a couple of years ago but Bruce could still read its history on the bodies of the people he tended to. She sits by his side as he talks and prepares his kit. Natasha has seen him do this, from a distance, a countless number of times. He adjusts his glasses as he checks the material twice, three times. He has the self-doubt of someone who was not trained to be a doctor. He has steady hands he does not believe in.

`Aren't you going to ask about the latest incident?´

In this light she can't see his face.

`I hardly think that constituted an incident,´ she says.

He says nothing.

Three days ago he let the Hulk free in a forest eighty miles east of the city. Natasha watched the satellite feed: he didn't cause any disturbance, just stood there, between ancient trees, quiet, for hours.

`I'd say you had it under control.´

`Only because there was nothing around to distract me. Any stimulus and I doubt I would have been able to hold the other guy quiet for so long. I just wanted to see if it was possible. And it seemed like a low risk environment.´

This is one of those times when Natasha wants to scream at him: _stop calling him The Other Guy, it's you, Bruce, it's all you_. But she doesn't scream, because that's not in her brief. This is also not part of her mission: to help him sterilize the instruments inside his kit, but she helps anyway.

`Have these people asked for your help anyway?´

`Why do you ask?´

`Do you know what the White Savior Complex is?´

Bruce blinks.

`You are saying I'm a racist,´ he states.

`No. I think you are running away from actual responsibility. You come here, you help, you leave. Here no one expects anything from you. So you can't let anyone down. I understand it, Bruce.´

She understands it. She used to think that was the right decision.

`You're thinking... I should go home?´

 _Where's that?_ Natasha thinks. She can't imagine any sense of the permanent in Bruce's life. It reminds her of her life before S.H.I.E.L.D. It reminds her in a way that she almost misses it, the simplicity of it.

`No,´ she says. `I'm saying... that it's no use pretending you didn't make the easiest choice.´

 

 

 

 

 

After that she doesn't really bother pretending she is spying on him.

Checking up on him is no longer a matter of distance and stealthiness. Some times it feels removed from what she understands as her job, and that worries her. She shows up, they talk about platitudes, they share a couple of underwhelming local dishes, and she goes away again. After a month or two they repeat the whole process.

Nothing ever changes.

Natasha has seen enough of him to know that Bruce actually enjoys being around people; she guesses isolation is not just safety but also part of his punishment.

She wonders why he never asks her what the others are doing; like the world doesn't exist outside what he is doing right now, outside their little moments like this – drinking coffee she bought him from the vending machine in some decrepit railroad station in Alaska. It's a weird choice, Banner has always favored warm places. She holds her cup with both hands, she is cold. Bruce's glasses are foggy with his own breath. She doesn't know if he is waiting for a train or if he has just arrived in one. It's her job to know, but some times it's just easier to agree on a meeting point and trust Bruce would be there.

`Does this plan for atonement of yours have an expiration date?´ she asks, almost distracted.

`Why? Are you in a hurry to get me somewhere else?´

`No. But maybe you'd want to see the guys.´

He tilts his head to one side and Natasha knows he is mocking her. It makes her nervous.

`I just thought,´ she elaborates. `You could use exposure to some regular friendly company.´

Bruce looks down at his cup of cheap coffee paid for by S.H.I.E.L.D.

`I thought I had you for that,´ he says, not looking at her.

Natasha goes from nervous to uncomfortable. She doesn't like it.

 

 

 

 

 

Has Bruce come to expect her? Does he consider her a fixture in his life? Natasha wonders. They have settled into a familiar rhythm. She wonders if he's got used to that pattern as well. Would he miss her if she didn't come again?

`I didn't see you in Rio, Agent Romanoff, I'd thought...´

`I don't like Brazil.´

 

 

 

 

 

Clint makes a joke about frequent flyer programs and she gets angry.

`It's a mission, just like any other mission I've ever had.´

Clint watches her as she folds a thin sweater and puts it in her bag; it's classified information so she doesn't tell him where she is going, though she doesn't bother hiding the clues, because this is Clint.

`I'm just saying it doesn't feel like a high risk matter,´ he says. `That is a good thing, Natasha. Just... don't get rusty. When was the last time you put a man in a coma using only your pinkie?´

`You have no idea how much risk it is or it isn't.´

Clint raises an eyebrow but she doesn't elaborate. Clint wasn't there, there's no way for her to explain the pure horror of being attacked by the Hulk. The fear that still sits in her stomach every time she is in a room with Bruce. The only other person in the world who can understand that terror is Bruce himself. And that's why she has to help him. These are the things she cannot tell Clint, and she could always tell Clint everything.

If Natasha remains in S.H.I.E.L.D. is because she finds it convenient, better than the alternatives. Clint doesn't share her concern – he is better at being obedient, trained to take the bad with the good and not let it stain him, his loyalties crystal clear. She doesn't find it so easy; after all, she changed sides more than once in the past.

(there's the other thing: the idea that if she stays in S.H.I.E.L.D. she can be the first to know if they cross any of the invisible lines Natasha knows exist; loyalty becomes something smaller and better defined – this one time Rogers told her that one does not fight a war to save the world, you fight a war to save the soldier besides you; Natasha gets it now, her loyalty is to Clint, and to Stark, and she made a promise to Bruce once when she didn't really mean it,

but now she means it)

She finishes packing for the next trip and sits besides her friend.

`Don't tell me you still feel like just a good spy, Clint. After everything that happened.´

`Of course not. But that's not what I'm saying.´

And Natasha doesn't feel like a spy at all, after their mission against Loki. Doesn't feel like the word _mission_ is useful anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

And there are the few times when she can overcome the fear, when the alarms don't go off when she gets near him and she can study him up close, and she can see the hint of resigned concern in his eyes. If she gets close enough she notices the way he looks at her.

`Natasha...´

`Yes.´

`Does yours have an expiration date? Your atonement.´

 

 

 

 

 

`You look rough,´ Clint tells her.

`Jet lag.´

`You don't get jet lag.´

He sits on her bunk bed, picking at the stack of mission reports she has in front of her, making a mess like some sort of annoying big brother.

`Maybe now I do.´

And Clint knows better than to push her when she is like this.

She makes a decision.

 

 

 

 

 

She knows she should have stopped it months ago. She calls it a bad habit.

Achingly blue skies. The kind you only ever get in old photographs anymore. He's again in South America, and he's again wearing a ridiculous hat.

`I came to tell you: I asked Director Fury to assign someone else to your surveillance.´

`I see,´ he looks deflated but covering it well. He doesn't look particularly surprised, though. `Personally I always felt your talents were wasted babysitting me, Agent Romanoff.´

`That's not–´ she bites her tongue. `This mission makes me uncomfortable.´

She feels him close down, a face he hasn't made in a long time.

`It would make _anyone_ uncomfortable. I could snap at any time and the other guy –´

`That's not it, either.´

She thinks about asking if he is being intentionally dense.

She tells herself she will, if he asks the real reason.

He never asks.

`Well, then I guess I'll see you at S.H.I.E.L.D. some time, at the next interplanetary crisis perhaps.´

`Yeah. See you around, doctor.´

 

 

 

 

 

Time passes.

There are other patterns she should be getting used to. Old habits she needs to go back to.

It's easy.

(she doesn't want it to be easy)

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody informed her directly but she guesses he'd been called.

She sees him from outside the glass doors, oblivious to her approaching. Natasha was always good at sneaking up on people.

She thought he'd look different, like someone from a different life. The little details: he's a bit more tanned, unshaven, and there's more gray in his hair.

But it feels like they saw each other just a couple of days ago.

`When did you get back?´

`This morning. An agent named Royce picked me up in Montevideo.´

He's already taken over the lab, is already working on something. It's quiet, he is early: there is some time before Stark and Rogers come and everything becomes lively and loud and messy. For now Bruce is on his own. She watches his hands for a moment, almost forgetting why she is here.

`Fury wants us in the briefing room in five minutes. You'd better get going.´

She turns around to leave.

`Wait, Natasha. Do you have a moment?´

She doesn't. She looks at her watch and decides it doesn't matter. The way he said her name. She nods very slightly, her expression in check, now she is sure she is not betraying anything, now she looks like the old Natasha. She lets Bruce study her face, knowing not even he can read her. The little illusion of control.

`I want to say something here,´ he looks unsure, overly cautious, like the first time she met him.

`Go on.´

His hands curl one into the other.

`It's been some time since we last saw each other.´

`Yeah,´ Natasha says, she thinks five months, she thinks and doesn't say.

Bruce lets a silence big as a whole town pass between them. She wonders if she should leave now. They are going to be late.

When Bruce does speak he looks down at the floor, as if the words were not aimed at her.

`I think I missed you.´

She freezes. It's the way he has of saying it, so matter-of-factly and as if he were a bit embarrassed by it.

Natasha replies without thinking about it:

`Yeah, I think I did too.´

His body sways forward slightly and for a moment Natasha thinks he is going to walk up to her and touch her. He doesn't. He seems to think better of it.

`Come on,´ she says, a sunnier, less-dangerous tone. She reaches her hand to his arm but she doesn't touch him, just brushes her fingertips against the crease on his coat. `I've seen Fury get weirdly anal when it comes to punctuality. Some times.´

He nods and swallows at the same time, a noise of struggling agreement at the back of his throat. He is wondering if that's an excuse.

Once again Natasha prepares to leave the room; she waits for the usual fear whenever she turns her back to him. She waits one second, then two. She waits. It never comes. She walks on and Bruce follows her.

Nothing ever really changes.

Then it does.


End file.
